Sunday, May 18, 2014

There is no clear
archeological evidence for when food was first cooked. Most anthropologists
believe that cooking fires began only about 250,000 years ago, when hearths
started appearing. Phylogenetic analysis by Chris Organ, Charles Nunn, Zarin
Machanda, and Richard Wrangham suggests that cooking may have been invented as
far back as 1.8 million to 2.3 million years ago. Wrangham proposed that
cooking was instrumental in human evolution, as it reduced the time required
for foraging and led to an increase in brain size. He estimates the percentage
decrease in gut size of early humans directly correlates to the increase in
brain size. Most other anthropologists, however, oppose Wrangham, stating that
archeological evidence suggests that cooking fires began in earnest only about
300,000 years ago when ancient hearths, earth ovens, burnt animal bones, and
flint appear across Europe and the Middle East. Two million years ago, the only
sign of fire is burnt earth with human remains, which most other
anthropologists consider to be mere coincidence rather than evidence of
intentional fire. The mainstream view among anthropologists is that the
increases in human brain size occurred well before the advent of cooking, due
to a shift away from the consumption of nuts and berries to the consumption of
meat.